After six days of ministering to my father — there were a few bright spots, including Amber Green. She was a beautiful blonde in her late 20’s or early 30’s, whose bright smile beamed into the room before she entered. My father noticed her immediately… and she continued to shine, helping me figure things out…
On Day One of assessments by the Acute Rehab folks at the hospital, my father was bombing out. He couldn’t hear a thing — he’d jammed his hearing aids into his ears. Karen, his driver and I called Dr. Susannah Storm’s office and got an emergency visit — to fix the damn things. I wrote her later…
I’m drowning in e-mails. One of them — that I didn’t delete because it had this image — came in a while ago from my friend Ewa Metcalf, who’s always on the look-out for all things keyboard. Evidently there’s such a thing as a “ceramic sculptor” who makes typewriters. He was the father of the…
Several months ago we were at a fundraiser for Emerson College/Los Angeles at the mountaintop home of mega-producer Norman Lear. Mysteriously, just as President Lee Pelton finished his remarks, and dinner was still hot on our plates, producer Larry David got up… and strode toward the front door. At first I thought he was on…
It’s hard to make sense of a hospital. Doctors come and go. Nurses whip in and out. And getting someone to LISTEN, really LISTEN to a patient’s story is a challenge. When my father had to have emergency surgery — I was scared. I didn’t know his doctors. Nobody on his “team” was part of…
Meghan Michaud is a fellow Rhode Island School of Design Trustee. She saw that I posted about my father’s being ill — with a strange infection. She knew I was worried — and so came up with her own form of little red valentine: a typewriter on display at the RISD Museum. I thought that…
Jim McCaw, a photojournalist who’s written for The New York Times and many other publications, is downsizing. He sent me two machines from his home in Michigan… one of them this Coronamatic 8000. I just found the Warranty & Owners’ Manual that Jim included. This baby was produced in 1977. Hmmm– that makes it a sexy…
My father’s driver and caretaker, Karen, was there today when he suddenly got very ill… and she decided, quite accurately, that he needed to go to the hospital to be checked out. I sent her a ‘thank you’ tonight along with a few gift cards for Saks Fifth Avenue, where she likes to get her…
Cate Ferrall, who’s 9 now, has become a really good penpal. She likes postcards — witness this one she sent from The Lone Cabbage Restaurant in Cocoa, Florida… and she decorates her letters with charming hand-drawn descriptions of her happy moments. Here she shows “me sticking my feet in the” “Atlantic” — and a few…
David Ferrall, proud Dad, sent me a picture of my penpal Cate’s “win” — she read the most minutes of anyone in her class and raised the most money. I contributed — don’t remember how much — to advance her cause. David thoughtfully snapped a picture of it so I could share in the joy….
